Polymeric material may be categorized as fluorinated and non-fluorinated. Low surface energy materials are typically made from fluoropolymers. Because of their chemical properties, low energy materials of fluoropolymers are not bondable, wettable or printable.
To make fluoropolymer materials bondable, wettable or printable they need to be chemically etched. Chemical etching processes such as "TETRATECH" from W.L. Gore Co. or "FLUOROTECH" from Porter Processing are typically commercially used to make fluoropolymer materials suitable for bonding, wetting or printing. Chemical etching processes, such as sodium etching, remove fluoride atoms from the surface of the fluoropolymer material. Theses processes result in a surface which is chemically changed, and which is susceptible to wetting and interacting with other materials so that the fluoropolymer material can be made adhesive; treated with an epoxy; laminated or otherwise suitable for additive processes.
However, currently employed processes used for making fluoropolymer materials wettable, bondable and printable have several drawbacks, including causing the fluoropolymer material to undergo a color change; having a limited shelf-life and having a chemical additive on the surface. These processes also cannot be used effectively on all fluoropolymer materials, particularly those made of colored and expanded porous fluoropolymers. In addition, on a more global perspective, the currently used processes are hazardous to work with and create environmentally hazardous by-products.
When other polymeric materials, such as "KAPTON" (DuPont) Polyester and polyolefins, are used for printing or bonding, they are typically first treated with an organic base coat primer in order to provide better adhesion or printability. Examples of such base coat primers include organometallic film forming compounds such as silanes and siloxanes. However these processes are very costly and further result in xylene and hexane emissions. These processes also require excessive curing temperatures for primer coating, which causes delimination.